Commemorate the 15th anniversary of 9/11 by understanding what followed

Summary: On 9-11 al Qaeda scored one of the biggest wins in history, as our response put America on a new path. We’ve helped set the Middle East aflame and given up important rights, with no end in sight to either. On this 15th anniversary of 9/11 let’s learn from our mistakes and begin the long process of reforming the damage we have done to America.

“We were attacked on 9/11 by a group of Saudis, Emiratis, and a Lebanese, led by an Egyptian. Which is why we’re at war in Afghanistan, Pakistan, Somalia, and Yemen.”

How will future Americans see our time?

“He [VP Cheney] would have worked through the whole lot, Iraq, Syria, Iran, dealing with all their surrogates in the course of it – Hezbollah, Hamas, etc. In other words, he thought the whole world had to be made anew, and that after September 11, it had to be done by force and with urgency. So he was for hard, hard power. … We’re coming after you, so change or be changed.”

What will 23rd century 8th grade history textbooks say about our time, the era of the Boomers? Only time strips away the trivia, showing future generations the key events of the past. For example, the events at Runnymede on 15 June 1215 seemed of little import to that generation. On August 24 the Pope declared the Baron’s agreement with King John invalid, the next month King John repudiated it, and it was one of a series of such compacts. Yet Magna Carta remained influential, and lives to this day.

I suspect that many prominent events, such as the Vietnam War, will be forgotten. Some, like the moon landing, will get brief mention (noteworthy, but of no significance in history). Children will learn about those events proven to be inflection points. 9/11 will be prominently mentioned. It was the one of the most effective single military operation in the history of the world, and probably the most cost-effective military operation ever.

How 9/11 changed the world

“The purpose of an action is the reaction.”
— Said by RJH in a comment.

On this day fifteen years ago al Qaeda changed the flow of history. It was not a decisive battle in the traditional sense, where thousands fight to determine the fate of nations. Al Qaeda sent 19 men with box cutters in an attack to manipulate America as a matador does with a bull.

The 9-11 terrorists were “super-empowered individuals” not because of what they did — planes often crash and buildings often burn, then life goes on — but because of what we did afterwards. The leverage on history came not from their actions but from our reaction. The long war with America that has drained its resources, corrupted its soul, and turned many of the Islamic community against the West.

Our counter-strikes have damaged or even crippled al Qaeda, but its leaders may see al Qaeda as the vanguard of their movement, not its body — and hence expendable. We do not know their calculations. Al Qaeda’s leaders might have deliberately or by miscalculation used it as a kamikaze against the West.

What has the Long War done to America?

“He who fights with monsters should look to it that he himself does not become a monster. And when you gaze long into an abyss the abyss also gazes into you.”
— Aphorism 146 in Nietzsche’s Beyond Good and Evil (1886).

The damage to our long-term strength and prosperity has only begun to appear. Our foreign adventures helped set the Middle East aflame, as we invaded Afghanistan (because of the big lie) and Iraq (more lies), joined the Saudi’s war in Yemen, helped destabilize Syria, etc. Civil wars still burn in the nations we invaded and occupied and bombed. The more virulent and extreme Islamic State has replaced Al Qaeda.

At home the cancerous growth of the secret security services eroded away our civil rights (see this ACLU study) and altered our society in ways difficult to see.

Obama institutionalized Bush Jr.’s policies, making them bipartisan policies. That makes them almost impossible to change. Neither Clinton nor Trump proposes reforms. 9/11 put America’s on a new path; nobody can see its end.

The face of America abroad.

Conclusions

“The principle behind Tai Chi stayed with me: you can multiply the force of an act by giving way before the force of others; a smaller person can use the strength of a bigger one against him. Jump to 9-11-01 and its aftermath. Think of it as a grim cosmic joke — that the 9/11 attacks, as apocalyptic as they looked, were anything but. The true disasters followed and the wounds were largely self-inflicted, as the most militarily powerful nation on the planet used its own force to disable itself.”
— Tom Engelhardt in a TomDispatch.

The consequences of 9/11 will continue to ripple out through America and the world until we decide to confront our actions since that day fifteen years ago in New York. We hide these grim truths about the long war with lies. The longer we wait, the greater the damage to America.